srw
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Minutes of the March 25, 1996 Board Meeting
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Mar 30 04:43 UTC 1996 |
Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Cyberspace.Communications, Inc.
Monday, March 25, 1996 at the cafeteria of ITI on Hubbard Road in Ann Arbor.
1. The meeting was called to order at 7:40 PM by Scott Helmke
Board members present:
Scott Helmke (scott), President
Steve Weiss (srw), Secretary
Valerie Mates (popcorn),
Steve Gibbard (scg),
Misti Anslin (mta)
Board Members absent:
Mark Conger (aruba), treasurer
Rob Henderson (robh)
Others present:
STeve Andre' (steve), staff
Jan Wolter (janc), staff
2. Treasurer's Report (skipped because the treasurer was not here)
3. 501(C)(3) Committee Report (also skipped)
4. Computer Rehabilitation Committee
Neither Rane Curl, nor Rob Argy were present either, so this was skipped,
too.
5. Publicity Committee (mta)
* The "Wizard in Training" booklet is now available. We have sold 10.
Misti will send the proceeds to Mark.
* Misti will announce on-line shortly that they'll be available.
* An on-line version is planned, but there will be revisions made first.
6. Technical Committee
* Scott offered a "Thanks" to all who worked so hard on the Sun-4 project.
Applause was given all around.
* The Terminal server is flaky. It crashes. There are various theories as
to the cause. None are checked out yet. We need to contact IOLAN
technical support, as it is covered by a warrantee.
* The sun-4 is up and it is very stable. No crashes, and no loss of disk
files.
* For some reason, during the boot-up cycle, it doesn't enter multi-user mode
like it should. This is being investigated, but it is not a serious problem.
* Some strange messages were issued by the system log on 3/22 regarding
incorrect inode values. The system corrected these in real time. It is
possible that this is a left-over artifact of the file system instability
from the Sun-3.
* The sun-3 is still running. It is much more stable without users.
* The "last" log needs to be merged from the sun-3 into the current system.
This will happen soon.
* The main user disk partition, /home, was not rebuilt during the changeover,
due to the unexpected failure of mdw's backup disk. We need to get that
disk repaired or replaced. It will take a while, but it is covered under
warrantee.
* When mdw has a working disk again, if we can borrow it, we are
planning to use it to rebuild our /home partition into a hierarchical
structure, which should speed up certain common operations, and generally
improve performance.
* The 8mm tape drive we use for backup is flaky, Scott cleaned it and tested
it, but it needs to be tested on a long tape.
* Our new Apache web server is working, but has occasional failures, which
require manual intervention to restart it. We plan to upgrade to a newer
version to see if the problem has been fixed.
* STeve Andre' says that the GVC modems should cost $90-$95. He had located
some less expensive ones, but did not have his calls returned, so is
locating another source.
* Staff fixed a large number of software glitches that appeared in the days
immediately following the conversion of Grex to the Sun-4.
* The number of ptys was increased from 40 to 48. There is the possibility
that the staff will continue to modify this number in order to come up with
a value that permits the greatest amount of usage without unduly loading the
system or internet link, rendering it too slow to use.
* There are now 12,500 entries in /etc/passwd. We cannot reap accounts at
the moment, because the "last" log has not been merged. (See above)
However, reaping is not going to remove very many of these.
* There were a couple of mail spamming incidents, involving users who sent
mail to every user on the system. Delivery of most of these messages was
cut short by staffers, but several thousand were delivered.
(End of technical committee report)
10. Newsletter Report
Misti reported that one new volunteer has stepped forward. Therefore, there is
some possibility of publishing a newsletter eventually.
11. JCC Sale
* The net proceeds from the JCC sale after subtracting the cost of the tables
was $370.
* The number of vendors was way down.
* We received a donation of books from Patty Rayle (pegasus).
* We gave out a lot of Grex fliers.
* Ten "Wizard in Training" booklets were sold. This is in addition to the
other ten mentioned in the Publicity Committee report.
* We received one $10 donation from someone who said "I like the Sun-4".
(End of JCC Sale report)
12 Further Discussion of the CDA
We are waiting for the outcome of the ACLU and CIEC court challenge to the
law. We are posting updates from the trial into the conferences.
13. Plan the Budget Meeting
There are four items that were discussed at the meeting. The highest priority
item was the increase of network bandwidth. Unfortunately this is still too
expensive to fit in our budget. The 0 was to have a
fund-raiser to raise enough to fund the line for some period of time. At least
a year, and preferably more.
The next highest priority item was to increase the dial-up pool by two more
modems. It has been filling regularly, although there was some discussion
regarding the extent of busy signals. A lot of anecdotal evidence was given.
The remaining tow items were not prioritized. They are the obtaining of a
UPS, with an estimated cost of $600, of which we currently have $160 pledged
and earmarked for a UPS. The other project was the Usenet machine. The cost of
this depends on the architecture chosen, and the staff is still discussing the
merits of different architectures among themselves.
It was also recommended that we undertake an auction to raise money for the
general fund. This would make more projects affordable.
MOTION: (popcorn, scott) To approve $300 for the purchase of two additional
GVC modems and the installation of two phone lines to expand the hunt group.
The motion passed unanimously 5-0 (robh and aruba were absent)
The board decided not to take action on the UPS or Usenet machine at this
time, as more technical discussions are needed before authorizing purchases.
14. New Business
* Membership Chair - Dan Romanchik proposed this position. The sense of the
board was that it would be helpful to have it. There were no volunteers for
it, though. Valerie agreed to enter an item in coop to discuss it further.
* Dungeon Issues - There is another building inspection coming up. STeve
reported that the contractor (Ian) used by the landlord (Nick) did not use
Wolmanized lumber for the base plate. Nick has hired another contractor
to perform the needed repairs. There is the possibility that we may have to
rearrange some equipment or furniture to accommodate this activity.
* Auction - Rob Henderson and Valerie Mates want to co-chair a committee to run
the auction described above. (Rob Henderson arrived for this portion of
the meeting.)
MOTION (srw,scott) To authorize Valerie Mates and Rob Henderson to plan and
execute an on-line charity auction to raise money for Grex's general fund.
The motion passed 6-0 (aruba was absent).
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:27 PM.
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